The Associated Press

VERSAILLES - A historic Episcopal church that weathered a devastating split earlier this year is rebuilding with a new pastor and a new governing board.

St. John's Episcopal Church split when its conservative members broke off to form their own congregation. They left in protest of the diocese bishop's support of an openly gay bishop.

Lexington diocesan leaders voted Saturday to upgrade St. John's to parish status, which means Bishop Stacy Sauls will no longer directly supervise the church.

The change is welcome news, St. John's officials said.

"It means we're standing on our own two feet," said Ann Cox, the head of the new church board, known as a vestry.

Diocesan officials fired St. John's old board in January, after it tried to hire a new minister who would not pledge loyalty to the Episcopal Church USA and openly gay bishop V. Gene Robinson.

The next week, the St. John's board and most of its Sunday school teachers and choir left to form a new congregation, St. Andrew's Anglican Church, and average attendance at St. John's dropped from about 150 to 80.

But new leaders stepped forward to be teachers and ushers and to serve on the bishop's committee, which worked with Sauls to run St. John's.

On May 23, St. John's held its first elections since the split, and it hired a new minister. The Rev. Alan Sutherland, 48, former rector at Emmanuel Episcopal in Winchester, said he's excited to be leading the church.

"There's an energy here, there's an excitement, there's a real sense of purpose," he said.

Cox said the church will move forward: "People will know St. John's for its work, not for its troubled past."

Across town, the new church is also looking to the future.

St. Andrew's elected new vestry members in March and performed its first baptisms in April. The congregation, with average attendance of 160, recently added a second, more traditional Sunday morning service.